Best of 2018: Take A Peak Inside Our Process with these Four Building Site Stories

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Best of 2018: Take A Peak Inside Our Process with these Four Building Site Stories

Monday, December 3, 2018

Polished portfolio photos only tell a fraction of our story. For a full sense of what it really takes to build a dream home, you need to see the noisy, muddy, powerful work that brings them to life.

Here are four of the most exciting moments that we captured from our project sites in 2018.

We Removed a Protected Tree from our Listed Chelsea Renovation

With all the things you need to worry about when renovating your home, it’s easy to forget that trees can put a halt to your plans. This was almost the case for our listed Chelsea renovation, which was overshadowed by an enormous, protected horse chestnut tree.

Luckily, with the help of arboricultural consultant Adam Hollis, we received permission to cut down the trouble tree, which was carefully removed by the brave tree surgeons of Apples and Pears Gardening.

Our clients and their neighbours celebrated, doubly so when it was discovered that the tree was literally rotten to the core. One bad storm and it could have flattened fences, or worse, a house.

We Rescued a Dangerously Deteriorated Fulham House

You never know what you’re going to discover when you start stripping back paint and plaster, and nowhere have the results been more shocking than in our ongoing Fulham basement extension and renovation.

What started as a renovation and extension is now almost an entirely new building as more and more of the structure was discovered to be beyond repair after suffering years of neglect.

The project has tested the limits of our temporary works as we prop up whatever fabric can be saved, while also providing a convincing argument for why we always include a contingency fund in our projects.

We Demolished an Unsightly Extension and Conservatory in Petersham

There’s something undeniably satisfying about demolition works. After months of careful planning and agonising over drawings down to the millimetre, the project bursts into life in a shower of rubble and dust.

In the wake of the destruction is the exciting potential of newly formed space, which in this project is being filled with a new, contemporary open plan living and kitchen in place of the outdated old extension and conservatory.

We Dug a Basement Larger than the Original House in Fulham

Fulham House is also featured in this year’s completed projects, but its construction was just as impressive as the finished product.

We excavated beneath the entire house – and beyond into the garden – to create the incredible new basement level, the existing structure above held up by concrete and steel.

It was an awe-inspiring space to walk around while the teams of skilled contractors slowly transformed it into the beautiful space it is now – as long as you didn’t think about the many tons of Victorian house above your head.